Challenge: 3 Game Tournament Campaign - 2000gc Start.

[Ram Rock Ed First]

Greetings everybody,

Here's a challenge for you all:

You are entering a Mordheim Tournament consisting of 3 games

You're to design a legal warband using the back of the book rules on warband creation for one off games in the core Mordheim Rulebook. Additionally, All rare items used have to have the relevent skills to be used if applicable and are brought at the base cost from the trading post unless on your starting warband list. There is no limit to the advances an individual hero can have but each advance above the 90 experience mark you take adds an extra 10 experience to the character. You could in effect have a character with several hundred experience fully maxed out if you so wish.

Warbands are to be chosen from The Mordheim Core Rulebook or The 2002 Mordheim Annual. Shadow Elves are not allowed.

That aside, 2 house rules are applicable for the games: i) You may ALWAYS run, regardless of how close an enemy is, and ii) If you have no access only to one type of weapon (combat or missile for example) then you may take a maximum of 3 of those weapons as opposed to 2 (as other characters will have access to 2 of each type for a total of 4).

3 Games against people also starting at 2,000 gc's (remember that Marienburgers start with an extra 20% so will be sitting pretty at 2400gc's). Tournament winners will be determined as a combination of how many experience points of opponents they dispatch throughout teh course of the games permanently as well as how much loot is found in terms of gc value. Additionally how much your warband grows in terms of rating by the end of the campaign. 3 scenario's exploring differing aspects of the game from objective grabbing, last man standing and other scenario specific objectives. 2 Hour matches. 3 matches in one day.

What type of warbands would you design?

Remember that it is a hypothetical tournament situation. No one minds if you powergame but if you powergame too far in one direction it may well have severe consequences on your ability to win each of the scenario's (of which you aren't told until the day). Don't make the presumption that only ingame skills and items will be of use, the exploration and trading phase could be equally rewarding to those who plan for it.

Have at it,

Ram.

[Master]

Just a quick question: Would it be possible to purchase advancements after the first game? IE with the money from exploration?

[Ram Rock Ed First]

Nope, standard campaign there after dependent on campaign scenario's. The B-O-B warband build is only to start.

[Ram Rock Ed First]

Okay, so an example of maxing one extreme (I like small warbands, I'm good with them and like the image of a handful of brave warriors taking on a vastly superior force) lol.

Warband: Undead

Henchmen: 2 Dire Wolves 100gc

Hero: 1 Vampire (110 base)

4 ws 60, 3 s 95, 2 t 75, 2 w 50, 4 i 40, 2 a 60, 2 ld 30 = 19 increases, costing 410gc's.

M 6
WS 8
BS 6
S 7
T 6
W 4
I 9
A 4
Ld 10

Skills (17x40 = 680gc's): Arcane Lore (2xLesser Magic Spells from teh Tomes of Magic = Flight of the Zimmeran & Sword of Rezhebel), Warrior Wizard, Sorcery, Mind Focus, Magical Aptitude, Sprint, Leap, Jump Up, Scale Shear Surfaces, Acrobat, Dodge, Step Aside, Resilient, Mighty Blow, Web of Steel, Strike to Injure, Combat Master.

Equipment (Costing 700 gc's):
Dagger, Ithilmar Spear (30), Shield (5), Gromril Armour (150), 3xHealing Herbs (60), Lucky Charm (10), Lucky Rabbit's Foot (10), Holy Relic (15), 2xTomes of Magic (400), Familiar (20).

Total Cost = 1900gc's.
Rating = 20 base+ advances = 19+17 = 36 advances = 36-13 = 23x10 = 230+90 = 320 Rating.

Warband Total Cost = 2,000 gc's.
Warband Experience = 320
Members (3)x5 = 15
Total Warband Rating = 335.

__________________________

Okay, so what do we have here? 1 bloody powerful Vampire who cannot advance any further but is going to be a holy terror to drop...well, not really.

This vamp is T7 at range, T8 in combat, moves a base of 18+D6 per turn and can move 12-24 inches more through Magical Flight for a total of 43-48 inches of movement in a single turn. In combat he packs 4 strength 8 spear attacks, if you charge him unless you're an elf, vampire or halfling also with maxed initiative and an ithilmar weapon, he is striking first with those 4 strength 8 attacks. You can only wound him in combat off a minimum strength of 5 and he has a base save of 3+ inc ombat also which is decent enough against strength 5 attacks. Throw in Dodge and Step Aside for increased resilience and he is laughing.

The real ace in the sleeve of course is The Sword of Rezhebel. I wanted a character that could be Weapon Skill 10 and Strength 10 in combat, and this chap does it. And with 5 such attacks against an opponent (6 if in B-2-B with more then 1 opponent or if he casts the sword a second time with magical aptitude) he is really just massacring anything that goes up against him (waves at Mr. Shadowlord).

So you have 1 Vampire you simply can't avoid hitting you, and he has 2 pet puppies. You could kill the puppies and then he is rolling for rout tests but with Ld 10 and a Holy Relic and a Lucky Rabbit's foot he is pretty much set for countering that and by the time he does fail you are dead.

Shooting, strength 4 firepower will wound him on a 6+ and he'll still get a Dodge save against any hits and at least a 4+ save for his armour, and the lucky charm is there for the lulz also. Strength 5 firepower you're getting him on 6's still, strength 6 is at 5's. Because there are so few weapons that can be strength 6 at range (Throwing stars/knives at strength 4 base, Crimson shade to 5, Dark Venom to 6), shooting is not the way to take him out unless you are really lucky.

Combat, at strength 8, with him attacking first, you're now aiming to hit him with your entire warband at once. 8 people can get to him so force him to engage you on your terms. Be spread out, make him only able to engage one person at a time. Choose an open space so as you can get everyone into base contact with him after he slaughters whoever he chooses (yes, even a maxed out ogre hero from Ostland is gonna likely be killed outright by this monstrosity...). Normally I would suggest hiding but the wording of The Flight of the Zimmeran is specific in as far as you can move into base contact with an enemy and count it as a charge, so he can charge you regardless of how hidden you are. You're gonna charge him in your turn, get 8 guys into base contact, he will use his spear as opposed to the sword to churn out 5 strength 8 attacks against you all first and foremost and drop 1 or 2 heroes who can wound him. It becomes a slogfest then but you should prevail.

There is of course a much more simpler way to deal with him and this is one of the reasons why you have 2,000 gc's to start - to be prepared for anything as who knows what the scenario' will throw at you.

The answer is actually quite amusing and detrimental to the vampire player - a canny opponent will spread his guys out so only 1 gets engaged at any one time. Thus 1 guy dies, assume it's a hero. That leaves 5 more heroes all equipped with Blessed water to auto wound and ignore his armour save thus getting 2 injury rolls before he gets to eat his healing herbs next round. Sisters of Sigmar are just laughing as they all are equipped with multiple vials of Blessed Water, henchwomen included...

I know many of you will have looked at this vampire and cried heinous power gamer abuse towards me, and yet it's all about how you approach the game and your design. That vampire is dead without a hope with the righte quipment or spells or skills used against him coupled with good game play.

What would you take?

Ram.

[Master]

Well, Ok challenge accepted, here is my attempt at creating a killer warband.

First I had to choose the warband, and even though Dwarves, Possessed and Undead all spring to mind first, I delved a little deeper, I needed a band with good abilities all round but more importantly the ability to be fast and kill more than one opponent per turn, well I found an answer:
Dark Elves.

However, they were disallowed from the competition, so I had to think how I could get another band with the same power level.

At last I got a funny thought, so here we go:

Marienburgers:
Captain - Sword, Crossbow, Dagger, Rabbits foot, Tarot Cards. +1 LD Quick shot, +2bs, +1W. 235gc
Champion - Sword, Crossbow, Dagger, Rabbits foot, Tarot Cards. +2 LD, Quick Shot, +3bs, Crossbow, +1W. 265
Champion - Axe, Crossbow, Dagger, Rabbits foot, Tarot Cards. +2 LD, Quick Shot, +3bs, Crossbow, +1W. 265
Youngblood - 2x Dagger, Rabbits foot, Tarot Cards. +3LD 122
Youngblood - 2x Dagger, Rabbits foot, Tarot Cards, +3LD 122
4x Wardogs Distributed among the heroes.

Henchmen:
7 Marksmen - Blunderbuss, Bow, Mace, Dagger. 490gc
4 Swordsmen - 2x Sword, Bow. 260 Gc
Hired Swords:
Pit Fighter - 30gc
Ogre - 80gc
Halfling Scout - 15gc
Warlock - 30gc
Elf Ranger - 40gc
Bounty Hunter - 40gc
Imperial Assassin + Crosbow - 65gc
Tilean Marksman - 40gc
Johann, the knife - 70gc
Aenur - 150gc

So what've we got? Well 26 warriors, that's what we got.
All of them have some ability to fire, except for Aenur, The pit fighter and the wardogs, the wardogs will play the role of interceptors, running around standing where the killing machines want to go, these guys will try not to engage any fight unless they can charge at least 12 on one, or just attempt to fire it to utter destruction with a ridicolous amount of arrows/bolts/knives.

Also, there's a pretty good chance of getting anything you want on exploration. The heroes should not get into combat for any circumstances, the wardogs or a dude with a sword should always be nearby to intercept and protect them.

If faced with the vampire they will not engage him, let alone attempt to charge him, they will merely position one warrior in his way every turn, and then the entire rest of the warband will move to engage his doggies and the scenario objective.

[Ram Rock Ed First]

Believe it or not Master, your warband is illegal.

The Wardogs actually count as members of the warband despite being equipment. So you'd have to drop 4 guys to include them. I am 99% sure that was the official ruling on them, it may be that they just contribute to cost of the warband in terms of selling wrydstone but I don't think that is the case else you'd find wealthy warbands with 20, 30, even 100 of the little blighters with enough games under their belts. The exception to the rule is Ostlanders where the Animal Friendship skill specifically states that you can include 2 extra warhound sthat don't count towards the maximum number of warriors allowed in the band, thus getting with a cookbook and 6 heroes with the skill, a maximum of 28 models before hired swords.

Incidentally, if the Ostermark warband from Fanatic Issue 1 (I think it's 1) were allowed, the wardog's also would benefit from the immune to all alone rules that is the signature rule for that warband.

I like your list otherwise, I haven't added up the totals of your starting 2400gc's but I am pretty sure you have excess gold. Do you have enough excess gold to rehire everyone for the other 2 games including Aenur in the 3rd game?

That said, very nice warband, but I'd like to point out that the Vampire can pretty much engage WHOEVER he wants each turn and you can't do anything about it. Yes you can put a likely person to charge in there and spread the warriors about, but barring the Hired Swords, your warband doesn't have any big hitters which is a weakness that could be abused. Nice warband though, the only criticism would be to up the stats of your henchmen a little bit an extra point of initiative or 2 on the Swordsmen would come in handy nicely.

One other thing, remember that a gromril or ithilmar weapon is the same as a normal weapon just made from a different material, so your henchmen could be equipped with gromril or ithilmar weapons. This becomes debateable in some circles because the dwarves have gromril weapons available to start to half their warband so it implies only heroes or people who can start with said weapons have access to them but for this purpose, we'll call it that anyone can have access to gromril or ithilmar weapons if they have access to the base weapon.

Cheers mate, get a tally of gold spent/left and total experience and rating up.

I'll fiddle with another much more balanced warband shortly (Reiklanders or marienburgers would be nice with Rapier spam but Averlanders are calling to me currently).

Luke.

[Master]

Well, I remember not having any gold left over, But I see your point with the wardogs, they would therefore be thrown out and I have 60 gold left, which would mean most of my hired swords probably would be left behind after the first game.

However, all the hired swords should be able to be used as interceptors in this case, Perhaps I should throw out the ogre, so I'll have 140 point to pay upkeep costs.

So I used 2260 Gold, meaning I have 140 gold left.

Rating is gonna take me hours to calculate, which means I'll get that up another day.

And the vampire will have trouble charging anything except intercepting dudes, he still have to charge the most direct route, which can quite easily be set up to be within 2" of any moron with a spoon... Guess what the halflings job will be?

[Ram Rock Ed First]

Read the Vampire again, if he was just charging he still has leap and can jump everyone in your warband except mounted warriors and the ogre, but he doesn't need to charge. What you are abusing is Flight of the Zimmeran. It isn't a charge in so far as you as the opponent are allowed to intercept as it is magical movement. It's too fast for you to react to is another way of looking at it. So try and intercept all you want, that I'm virtually guaranteed casting anything I cast because the flight is acsting on 6 and the sword on 7 either re-rolling both dice (familiar) or one dice (mind focus) and if I still fail magicl aptitude allows another spell to be cast on anything but a 6 and then I have a lucky rabbits foot for the first time that happens. :p

To your warband, you priced the warhounds wrong. They aren't 15 gc each as per the witch hunter warband. They are more expensive in trading (25+2D6 rare 10) so you'd actually be paying 25 gc per warhound in this case.

I also forgot in the opening post to mention youc an level a Henchman/woman up to Hero status at the cost of 40gc and a random advancement as well as 2D6 experience points. It's a houserule we've played for one off games or mini campaigns to get more flexibility in lists and it works quite nicely.

One last thing, to be overly critical of your list, it is balanced, has alot of skills and if worse comes to worse and you bum out in an exploration phase (have 2 in the campiagn that count) then selling off excess equipment to pay upkeep costs is an option. But that aside, you don't have any massive damage dealer. Not even a guy with strength 4 and a 2 handed weapon to get at least 1 strength 6 attack in there (ogre aside and charging knight also). You've got a heck of alot of gold to mess with so shake up the power levels as who knows what you are facing.

Cheers mate, I'll get to an Averlander list or some sort of mercs' in the next week or two.

Luke.

[Master]

Your probably right, however both Johann and Aenur should be the hard hitters. Especially Johan who is just ridicolous.

Anyway, it was an early draft here is another idea:

EDIT: warband edited.

1 Magister - 2xDagger, Rabbits foot, garlic, blessed water.
Wing of darkness.
+2 Skills: Hunch, Mind Focus.
173 Gold coins.
2 Advancements + 20 base exp: 28 exp

1 Possessed 90gc
4 Tentacles: 245gc
2 Extra Arms: 160
+1 Movement 15gc
+2 Strength: 60gc
+2 Toughness 75gc
+3 Leadership 45gc
+2 Wounds 50gc
+1 Attack 25gc
Unholy Relic, 3x Healing Herbs, rabbits foot, Lucky Charm, garlic. 96gc
Four Skills: Dodge, Sprint, Resilient, Scale sheer surfaces. 160gc
Total 1011
15 Advancements + 8 base exp: 76exp.

1 Possessed 90gc
3 Tentacles: 175gc
1 Extra Arm: 80gc
+1 Movement 15gc
+2 Strength: 60gc
+2 Toughness 75gc
+2 Wounds 50gc
+1 Attack 25gc
3x Healing Herbs, rabbits foot,  Lucky Charm, garlic, Rope & Hook, Lantern. 96gc
Four Skills: Dodge, Sprint, Resilient, leap. 160
Total 816
12 Advancements + 8 base exp: 57 Experience points.

Gold Used: 1980
Gold Left: 20

Total Experience:           161 Warband Members: 3x5=   15 Warband rating:             176

The tactic is to place the magister somewhere safe and fly him to a safer spot if he needs it, he will probably get raped, but a possessed has LD10 in that case, so they don't flee at least.

How do you play mutations? Hopefully, we agree they stack. But does he need an arm per tentacle? I've always played they didn't, but I'm not sure.

The idea of the warband? Well about nothing can hurt the possessed, they are T6, with T7 in close combat, 4 wounds, and they'll heal themselves fully in case they need it, they also have some saves against missile fire for the fun of it, mainly because S5 missile fire can wound them on 5+. If they get into close combat anything with 5 attacks or less will be reduced to a single attack, great luck trying to beat up something that's got T7 and 4 wounds with one attack each round.

The magister will use his hunch skill so they can set up where they like, the possessed will probably go into a building near their opponent while the magister will try to get as far away from everything as possible, he might try to capture the occasional scenario objective but that's about it.

Also the warband will most likely be underdog so the magister and the second possessed might advance again , not that it will have any effect.

Another option could be to have some mutants, that are rewarded like sick from the shadowlord, but these rules are optional so therefore I dont think it is allowed.

[Ram Rock Ed First]

How do you play mutations? Hopefully, we agree they stack. But does he need an arm per tentacle? I've always played they didn't, but I'm not sure.

They stack, can't remember off hand whether it's to aminimum of one attack, but nice way to play the defensive there.

You do need 1 arm per tentacle however. It is the same for Giant Claws. Pain in the arse for sure but even so.

Oh and you need spines. They negate both Lucky Charms AND Parries automatically. It's so awesome.

Nice warband otherwise (The 14 inch climb on the Possessed is always fun .

StyrofoamKing, come on Dave, post up a warband.

Cheers,

Luke.

[StyrofoamKing]

Hmm. Not normally my game, but I'll give it a whirl sometime this weekend.

Tentacles: never noticed the 'arm' thing before. Though, we definitely made it one attack per tentacle, not one per attacker.

Spines: I don't see spines taking out parries, though. Don't they auto-hit? If so, you'd still get a parry with the first attack that rolls to hit.

EDIT: Hey, are beastmen allowed?

[Master]

I modified the warband so it is legal now, however, one of them now has only three tentacles which means maxed out warriors will strike 2 attacks on it, meaning they can actually theoretically take him out.

The other one stil has LD 10 and a holy relic so it wont flee though. It also gained an extra attack from all the arms though.
I was thinking of throwing the spines on there, but as they cost 60, which is more than an extra attack, I decided it wasn't really worth it, I'm not really scared of any close combat threat with these guys, as they can team up if need be. (remember they move 19-24" each turn so they can easily run to support eachother).

I'm wondering whether the Magister should have eye of god instead, so he can buff up a possessed, I'll also probably lose the mind focus, and leave him just there for the hunch and the fact that you need to have him, I'm also thinking about including a few dogs, just to run around and make it harder to force rout tests. I was also thinking of finding the money for some elven cloaks for the possessed they are vulnerable to shooting with only T6, 4 wounds and 3 healing herbs. Or I could just get more healing herbs.